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Columnist and Environment

Could undersea living be the future as sea levels rise?

In this latest instalment of Future Chronicles, an imagined history of future inventions, we journey to 2035, when undersea living became a reality. Rowan Hooper tells us how it happened

By Rowan Hooper

4 June 2025

Sentinel-5 seafloor scene

Is this the future, in a world where the seas are rising?

DEEP R&D Ltd

The Sama-Bajau are an Indigenous seaborne people from South-East Asia, sometimes called Sea Nomads. For thousands of years they lived a coastal subsistence lifestyle, foraging underwater without diving equipment and holding their breath for extreme durations. But multiple crises threatened their way of life in the early 21st century. Industrial over-fishing, pollution and coral bleaching hit their food supplies, and sea-level rise engulfed their coastal homes.

In 2035, a community of Bajau people living off the coast of Sabah, northern Borneo, raised seed funding to…

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